Schools in the United States are the target of widespread criticism, and many of the ills of society are blamed on the inadequacy of the schools without regard to the problems that beset them. Schools have been beleaguered by a flood of social problems. Social critics ask the schools to take the lead in combatting social problems, often at a cost to educational quality. An objective look at the performance of American schools was taken by the authors of the Sandia Report, a report on the status of public schools that was commissioned by the Secretary of Energy. These researchers found steady or slightly improving trends on a number of indicators and suggested that the decline in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is due to the changing population of test takers, that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) does not document real decline, and that the schools are not so far behind in terms of workforce preparation. The impact of factors outside the control of the schools and such influences as increased immigration and poverty cannot be disregarded in considering the true state of the schools. Regardless of their shortcomings and achievements at present, schools will not be able to meet the challenges of the future without broader support from society at large. One graph documents SAT trends. (SLD)